ECJ Advocate General Rejects EU Patent Litigation Scheme

Opinion 1/09 of the Advocate General, Juliane Kokott, 2 July 2010. The Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) has found that the EU centralized patent litigation system recently proposed by the Council of the European Union does not comply with EU law. In her opinion, among the various incompatibilities, she stressed that the proposed linguistic system would violate the rights of defence. This opinion constitutes a blow to the efforts to finally reach the long-awaited EU patent litigation scheme (as envisaged in the Draft Agreement on the European and Community Patents Court). This blow will be even stronger, should the ECJ confirm her opinion